1639 Kalmia Rd NW
Washington, DC 20012

This school is average. The teachers did not communicate well with the students nor did they give the homework specified to their needs. This school was small however there was always lots going on event, teacher, and student wise. As a child who went here and had very obvious anxiety, I found the teachers were not understanding and in some circumstances made it worse. Therefore I believe that shepherd could use some more understanding of students suffering from mental health problems. This leads me to the fact that some of the teacher's (mainly in the later grades) teaching and punishment methods would leave me and other former students stressed. Adding to this the teachers would take away our break times as a form of punishment, I understand that taking away our ability to talk at lunch and our recess could theoretically be an effective response to misbehaver, however, lunch and recess is a student's one break from a day of learning and helps many of us get back into a learning mindset, therefore, this could lead to frustration or distraction throughout the rest of the day. I found that the amount of homework for elementary students was a lot and overwhelming especially because it was hard to communicate with the teachers, during and after school. The cafeteria was filthy with the food being disgusting and most of the time cold, they also did not cater to students with health problems and allergies despite being a nut-free school (however this was my experience before the renovation so they might have changed the food and cleanliness). The school was also obsessed with IB, changing the teaching protocol and making certain 'ib students' which made the other students feel left out or not as good as them (I personally do not care about this but I know my peers cared a lot about it. Lastly, I'd like to touch on the common core math method. First of all Common core made learning math 10 times more difficult as it included complicated ways to get the answer, I understand that the point of common core was to made make learning math easier, however, it often made math more confusing for me and my peers. Another problem with common core was that the teachers expected you to always use that method of math even if you found the answer using a different method, they would still expect you to show your work with the common core way. However, shepherd did have a few positives like good community events and student opportunities however the clubs were limited.

I was impressed the way the teach are there time.good job

Very bad in every way lots of bullying teachers biased unclean teachers yell at you for every little thing like throwing trash away no fun things to do here